Chapter 34 — Ten Thousand Bats
劍問蒼天 · Page 2 of 6
Moonlight like water spilled softly over her shoulders and cheeks, revealing a loveliness that stirred the heart.
Zhang Qingyue did not know when he had begun to stare, spellbound.
The girl laughed a while, and when she saw Zhang Qingyue staring at her, she gave a little "hmph"—and, far from blushing like an ordinary girl, said outright, "Am I pretty?"
Zhang Qingyue started, as though caught red-handed in some theft, and felt deeply mortified. Yet under the girl's gaze, soft as water, he felt there was nowhere to flee. "I—you—er—you, pretty!"
The moment the words left his mouth, Zhang Qingyue himself was stunned, and a strange, indefinable flavor welled up in his heart. The girl, however, seemed not to mind at all. A faint smile on her face, she said, "I thought so. From the time I was little, who hasn't said I was pretty? You men—you're all the same."
For all her youth, she spoke as though she had weathered the world's storms. Zhang Qingyue's anger surged, and he was about to retort, but a casual glance showed him her bright eyes and white teeth as she stood alone in the moonlight, and there was something faintly familiar about her. At once he remembered the lovely figure of his elder martial sister that he had seen with his own eyes on Canglan Mountain, by the banks of the Green Water Pool. In that instant he suddenly lost all appetite for the exchange and could summon no more spirit. He glanced once more at the green-clad girl, sighed softly, said not a word, and turned to walk away.
"Hey," came the call from behind him after a few steps. Zhang Qingyue frowned and turned around to look at the green-clad girl.
She had narrowed her eyes slightly, and her moist lips seemed to press together a little, as though pondering something, but the air had suddenly fallen silent.
"What's your name?" she asked, just as before, and in her eyes his reflection floated.
But Zhang Qingyue abruptly drew back. All the anger of a moment ago had dissolved in an instant, as if before this figure even a little wrath were improper. He avoided that soft gaze, and with a faint timidity that he himself found unsettling, said, "Zhang Qingyue."
Then he hurried off, looking rather as though he were fleeing in defeat.
Head down, striding fast, he had just rounded a bend in the winding path when a dark figure suddenly appeared ahead of him. In that shadowy garden, one would hardly have made it out without coming close.
He nearly could not stop himself in time; luckily his reflexes were quick, and he pulled up just short of the figure. In the darkness, a pair of bright yet serene eyes appeared before him.
They were far too close. Zhang Qingyue jumped, hurriedly stepped back, and only then made out that this was the veiled woman who had sat beside the green-clad girl at dinner. She was still veiled now, but she had changed into a black silk gown, and in the night she was almost like a ghost.
Zhang Qingyue steadied himself, still a little breathless, and caught a faint scent—he could not tell whether it was the fragrance of the garden or of the woman he had just stood close to.
His heart gave a leap, and he felt that coming out tonight had been a mistake. Mumbling "Excuse me," he walked past the veiled woman and made for his room.
From first to last the veiled woman said not a word, only standing quietly and watching the youth with her eyes. After Zhang Qingyue had passed her, she slowly turned to watch his departing figure.
For a long while, until her figure had almost melted into the darkness of the shadowy garden, she turned and walked deeper into the garden. Soon she saw the green-clad girl, still standing where she had been, toying with a picked flower in her hand.
The green-clad girl looked up without surprise and smiled. "Aunt You, you're back."